Why I think that the short development that they did with links is good or more than good is because of a security reason, which is something really important on a platform like this. It just warns you that a specific link is going to take you to a different site, so you can know from the beginning that you are going to leave Steemit if you click on it. I find this more than important! Here is a short example:

Let's say that I am into phishing and I want to catch some guys over here with a post where I use a link like this but pointing to a site with an interface that is similar to a Steemit page with a post that I am trying to share in my article. Without this recent small development, people would be tempted to believe that they are still on Steemit, but somehow they are logged out, and when they will try to log in, they will lose their keys. That simple it is!

You may say that this is stupid and who is falling for this is a fool, but this is why sites like steewit.com and steemil.com exists. I am sure that they have caught a lot of people by now and that it is possible they will catch more in the future.

This development reduces the risk of phishing and also of accessing sites that contain malware a lot, and I don't believe this introduced a lot of new bugs. It is just my opinion, but there is a great chance that I may be right.